[andy153]

I started off about 1952 at the age of 6 - with the local celebrations for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. My father was a keen amateur and had carried a camera with him most of his childhood and throughout the war and he still carries one today at the age of 87. He still has colour photo's he' took and developed of the coronation of George VI. His war, as a Navigator in costal command took him to South Africa, North Africa, Palestine ( as it was then), Lebanon, Syria, Italy, Norfolk and Ireland. And he has albums and albums of photographs from all these times.
My own first camera was made of bakelite, cost 1/6d from Woolworths and the film was about 8mm producing postage stamp size negatives. Dad taught me a lot and I progressed to using one of his cameras which was a Kodak Number 1 Autographic. With the start of 35mm he went on to Minolta and Canon.
I went to Zenith, then Pentax then a Nikkormat FT and a Rollieflex 2.8 F2 with a Zeizz Planar 2.8/80. I became hooked on Nikon and when all my gear was stolen in 1986 by a burglary I lost an original Nikon F Photomic, a Nikon Photomic F2 AS, a Nikon EL 2, 2 Ftn's and lenses that included 85mm 1.8, 35mm PC Nikkor, 200mm Medical Nikkor, Ai-Nikkor 300mm f/4.5, 500mm reflex and many others.
Needless to say I was under insured and had the heart knocked out of me - I spent several years just taking family snaps.
Just before retirement in 1997 I returned and am now full digital - Nikon of course! Started with D70 kit- then D200, D2h & D2x - considering a D300.